Rewards

My 21, 2008

2 Samuel 22:21-25 (The Message)

21-25 God made my life complete

when I placed all the pieces before him.
When I cleaned up my act,
he gave me a fresh start.
Indeed, I've kept alert to God's ways;
I haven't taken God for granted.
Every day I review the ways he works,
I try not to miss a trick.
I feel put back together,
and I'm watching my step.
God rewrote the text of my life
when I opened the book of my heart to his eyes.

I have always struggled with verses like this. My Christianity says that I can not earn my way into God's favor, that I can not be rewarded just because of my works, that salvation can only come through Jesus. Yet here is a verse that clearly tells me the opposite. When I cleaned up my life, God rewarded me. How can they reconcile.

I thought back to a sermon that I heard years ago. Paul in the epistles tells us that when we die, the works that we do will be rewarded to us as gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay or stubble. In the end they will all have a torch put to them. The gold, silver and precious stones will not be altered by the fire. We do know however, what will happen to the wood, hay or stubble. It will turn to ash. What is left is what our crowns in heaven will be.

So you see, salvation can only come from God alone. God however, does reward us for our works.

Read through the Bible in one year in Historical order
Today
Psalms 57:1-11, 2 Samuel 22:1-23:39
Tomorrow
Psalms 95:1-11, Psalms 97:1-12, Psalms 98:1-9, Psalms 99:1-9

Visithttp://dailydevotionbob.blogspot.com/ for more tools and sign up for mailing list